Days of Atonement by Micheal Gregorio

Days of Atonement by Michael Gregorio
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book is set in the early 1800s. The protagonist is an apprentice of Immanuel Kant. He is a procurator (magistrate) in a small Prussian town. Napolean has conquered Prussia and the French are ruling it with an iron hand. There is lack of all resources amongst the Prussian. The procurator's wife has delivered a baby and she is just recovering from this delivery both physically and mentally. There is enough antagonism between the Prussians and the French as is between any conqueror and the conquered.
Amidst this there is a gruesome massacre of three children. Their mother is missing and their father is another town. The French rope in the procurator to work alongside a French investigator to try and solve the mystery. The common link between them is that both of them revere Immanuel Kant. The procurator finds the French investigator a flirt and finds him flirting with his wife too. He tries to keep the news away from his wife before he is sent off to a the town where the father of the children is stationed to inform him about the murders. There he finds that the father too has died under mysterious circumstances. He finds the Prussian General who is running that township to be unfriendly.
When he returns with this news he finds that the French investigator has interviewed his wife in his absence and that his wife knows about the murders. The townsfolk believe that the Jews have killed the chidlren and they are baying for the blood of the Jews who are living in a ghetto in the town.
The book is about how the two go about collaborating with, Kant's shadow, over them and solve the mystery. A good read.

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